'On Ragged Schools' from the Daily News

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English

This extract from the Daily News includes both a letter from Charles Dickens on ‘crime and education’ and a review of a lecture on the ragged school movement. Dating from 1846, Dickens recalls his own visit to the Field Lane Ragged School in the early 1840s. The novelist praises the principle of ragged schools, arguing that education is the solution to alleviating crime, although he grants that improvements can, and should, be made to the curriculum and the ‘school’ buildings.

Ragged schools were institutions that provided free education for the poorest children at a time when it was not provided by the British government.

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Ragged Schools provided free education for children too poor to receive it elsewhere. Imogen Lee explains the origins and aims of the movement that established such schools, focusing on the London’s Field Lane Ragged School, which Charles Dickens visited.